It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Saturday, December 04, 2021
MMG's Las Bambas mine in Peru faces new shutdown as talks to end blockade fail
Friday December 03, 2021
Kitco News
(Recasts with interview with executives)
By Marcelo Rochabrun, Marco Aquino and Sameer Manekar LIMA, Dec 3 (Reuters) - MMG Ltd's Las Bambas copper mine in Peru will shut down copper production by mid-December due to a road blockade, it said on Friday, as executives urged the government to build a freight rail link to avoid similar disruptions in future.
"The freight rail has huge social acceptance," Carlos Castro, Las Bambas head of corporate affairs, said in an interview with Reuters.
Las Bambas is one of Peru's largest copper mines, but its operations have been disrupted by close to 400 days since it began operations in 2016, executives said.
At issue is a dirt road that Las Bambas uses to transport the copper from its mine to a sea port. Communities along the road have staunchly opposed this method of transportation, alleging environmental and social concerns. Las Bambas last faced a production shutdown threat in October. Executives acknowledged in the interview that the dirt road was not sustainable into the future, saying it was the government's responsibility to pave the route in the medium-term, but that in the long-term building a separate freight train link would be the best solution.
While Peru's current administration under socialist Pedro Castillo has endorsed the train, the government's own cost-estimate is significant at $9.2 billion, and would only begin operations in 2028 at the earliest.
Las Bambas was originally going to transport its copper through an underground mineral pipeline, but that plan was cancelled when the mining project was sold to Chinese miner MMG. Still, executives said the mineral pipeline makes no sense anymore.
"From the point of view of social profitability, it is unacceptable," Castro said. "What local families tell us is that a mineral pipeline would negatively affect the area, because all the businesses associated with (copper) transport would cease to exist."
The road is currently blocked by residents of the Chumbivilcas province, who are negotiating contracts for locals to be hired as drivers for the mine.
The Hong Kong-listed company said that no resolution was reached at a meeting on Nov. 30 between the Peruvian government and the community due to what the company views as 'excessive commercial demands'. In July, Las Bambas flagged that production in 2021 was expected in the low end of its 310,00-330,000 tonnes forecast. Las Bambas produces 400,000 tonnes of copper a year, or about 2% of the world's copper.
Stockpiles on the site have now increased to around 50,000 tonnes of copper in concentrate. (Reporting by Sameer Manekar and Tejaswi Marthi in Bengaluru; editing by Uttaresh.V and David Evans)
P&G faces shortage of recycled plastic in race to meet sustainability goals
(Reuters) - Procter & Gamble Co has lofty goals for cutting its environmental impact by 2030 but obtaining recycled plastic for more sustainable packaging is challenging, the company's vice president of global sustainability said at the Reuters Next conference.
Global supply chain issues are making obtaining environmentally sound packaging materials more difficult, Jack McAneny said on Friday, as the consumer goods giant scrambles to meet the demands of an increasingly eco-conscious consumer base.
"There's simply not enough recycled plastic available to meet the commitments that have been made by not only just P&G, but our peers and industry," McAneny said.
P&G, the maker of Gillette razors and Tide detergent, has pledged to make 100% of its packaging recyclable or reusable and reduce its use of virgin petroleum plastic by 50% by 2030.
Less than 10% of all the plastic ever made has been recycled, largely because it's too costly to collect and sort. Plastic production, meanwhile, is projected to double within 20 years, something industry critics believe is the biggest driver of the planet's waste problem.
McAneny said P&G was working with suppliers to increase the output of recycled plastic and is developing new processing technology that can more easily recycle materials such as polypropylene.
McAneny said PureCycle Technologies, a start-up that licenses P&G's polypropylene recycling process, could open up a wide range of uses for waste plastic that have not previously been feasible.
"We need to ensure that these advanced recycling technologies are indeed delivering a net benefit," McAneny said. "Whiz bang technology might not always be the right solution if it's going to use more energy, create more waste. And that's where we have to be diligent."
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission subpoenaed PureCycle's CEO on Sept. 30 to testify in a fact-finding investigation of the company's technology and financial projections.
PureCycle previously said it plans to cooperate but did not respond to a request for comment on Friday. It was unclear if there would be any impact on P&G's sustainability efforts from the SEC probe. P&G said it looks forward to PureCycle being a supplier in the future.
Varcoe: 'I am an activist,' says federal environment minister as he meets with energy leaders
It was Steven Guilbeault's first chance to meet face-to-face in the city with top brass from major energy companies
Author of the article: Chris Varcoe • Calgary Herald Publishing date: Dec 04, 2021 •
Minister of Environment and Climate Change Steven Guilbeault speaks during Question Period in the House of Commons on Nov. 26, 2021.
PHOTO BY THE CANADIAN PRESS/PATRICK DOYLE
Oh, to have been a fly on the wall of Friday’s meetings between the country’s oilpatch and Canada’s most powerful environmentalist activist.
And, no, I’m not talking about David Suzuki.
On a frosty day in Calgary, federal Environment and Climate Change Minister Steven Guilbeault sat down with leaders from several petroleum producers, pipeline companies, power utilities and Alberta business groups at the Harry Hays Building.
It was his first chance to meet face-to-face in the city with top brass from companies such as TC Energy, Enbridge, Tourmaline Oil, ATCO and TransAlta.
A separate session was held with the heads of major oilsands producers, including Cenovus Energy CEO Alex Pourbaix, Suncor Energy CEO Mark Little (who attended virtually) and Canadian Natural Resources’ president Tim McKay — all representing companies that are jointly pursuing net-zero emissions by 2050.
A former Greenpeace Canada campaign manager and co-founder of Quebec environmental group Equiterre, Guilbeault was a fierce critic of the oilsands before entering politics in 2019.
Two decades ago, he famously sca led the CN Tower to string up a banner that declared: “Canada and Bush: Climate Killers,” under the observation deck of the Toronto landmark. He’s also opposed oil pipelines, including the Trans Mountain expansion and Energy East.
Now, he’s in charge of Canada’s climate strategy
.
Steven Guilbeault is taken into custody by police after scaling the CN Tower in 2001 during his time as a Greenpeace activist.
PHOTO BY POSTMEDIA ARCHIVE
“Throughout my career as an environmentalist, I think I’ve shown an ability to be able to work with people who don’t think like I do, and that public policy is about the art of compromise,” Guilbeault said in an interview Friday.
“I am an activist. I was and I still am an activist, but I am now the minister of environment and climate change for all Canadians. And I have responsibilities now that were not the responsibilities I had as an environmentalist activist.” Those ministerial duties will have a direct impact on the oil and gas industry, the largest emitting sector of the Canadian economy.
In his first month on the job, Guilbeault went to the COP26 climate summit, where the Trudeau government rolled out its proposal for a new emissions cap on the oil and gas sector.
He’s now started consultation on it and Canada’s new emissions reduction plan, with discussions extended until the end of March.
The Montreal MP understands why industry players might be apprehensive about his appointment, but said he doesn’t “have a back-pocket plan ready to go” regarding the cap’s implementation.
“I felt at the time, 20, 30 years ago, that we had to do things like scale the CN Tower to be able to get people’s attention on climate change. And I don’t think we need to do that now,” he added.
“Now, we have the B.C. flooding, and we have the heat dome, and we have the hail storms that are constant reminders that we have entered the era of climate change and we need to do something.”
It’s an understatement to say the minister’s arrival has triggered suspicion within the Alberta government and oilpatch, particularly as key federal policies move ahead, including the cap, new rules to slash methane emissions and a federal tax credit for carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) projects.
Steven Guilbeault speaks during the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26), in Glasgow on Nov. 12. PHOTO BY REUTERS/PHIL NOBLE
Putting Guilbeault in charge of the portfolio was a signal from the Trudeau government to the country’s oil and gas sector, said Hal Kvisle, chair of ARC Resources and the former CEO of TransCanada Corp.
“We took it as a direct shot in the eye,” Kvisle said Friday.
“To pick Guilbeault as the environment minister, you might as well pick David Suzuki and just make it very clear to us what they think of us.”
The Kenney government is also concerned about Guilbeault and what impact the emissions cap will have on oil and natural gas production, an area of provincial jurisdiction.
The industry has big plans for CCUS, which would capture and store emissions deep underground.
Will producing oil with carbon capture technology allow for continued, or even additional, production as Canada moves toward a net-zero target by 2050?
“In theory, if it’s carbon-free oil, it could. But will the demand be there in the same way it is now, I think is a fair question to be asking,” Guilbeault replied.
“My issue has always been with pollution. But I’m part of a government that has been very clear on this: We’re not going after production; we are going after the emissions.”
Those who attended one of Friday’s meetings called it a productive discussion.
“It’s a great start to a relationship that many were worried about it,” said Adam Legge, president of the Business Council of Alberta. “The proof is in the action and how well we work together.”
Is the new minister willing to search for common ground with the oilpatch?
Guilbeault noted he has a photo in his Ottawa office from November 2015, when he stood on stage with then-premier Rachel Notley and energy leaders to support Alberta’s climate plan, which included a 100-megatonne emissions cap for the oilsands.
Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault, at far right, then an environmental consultant, is shown with then-Premier Rachel Notley as she unveiled Alberta’s climate strategy in November 2015.
PHOTO BY THE CANADIAN PRESS/AMBER BRACKEN
While he preferred a lower number, Guilbeault said he was willing to support it, “which did lead to me being accused of being a sell-out by some of my ex-environmental colleagues.”
He also met with Alberta Environment Minister Jason Nixon, who has also been openly critical of his federal counterpart’s appointment.
Nixon called it a polite get-together but said he’s still worried about the impact the federal climate plan could have on Alberta jobs.
“My bigger concern after this meeting would be that the federal minister does not seem to understand still how some of the policies could impact not just the oil and gas industry, but multiple industries,” Nixon said in an interview.
“I will give him the benefit of the doubt. But in the next few weeks, we’re about to find out whether or not he really wants to compromise.”
Chris Varcoe is a Calgary Herald columnist.
Environmental activists challenge ‘unlawful’ UK fossil fuel plan in high court
Climate campaigners claim the government is giving billions of pounds in subsidies to oil and gas producers
Jeremy Cox, Kairin van Sweeden and Mikaela Loach from the environmental campaign group Paid to Pollute are mounting a high court challenge this week.
Environmental campaigners will this week ask the high court to rule that the government’s fossil fuel strategy is unlawful, in a case that could undermine the UK’s claim to be leading the fight against climate change.
The campaigners will argue that the government is effectively subsidising oil and gas production with billions of pounds in handouts, which conflicts with its legal duty to achieve net zero emissions by 2050.
Pressure group Paid to Pollute says oil and gas companies received billions of pounds in tax relief for new oil and gas exploration, and billions more towards decommissioning costs between 2016 and 2020. The group says this amounts to fossil fuel subsidies.
“Public money is supporting businesses that contribute to the climate crisis instead of solving it,” said Kairin van Sweeden, one of three activists who will appear in court. “We have to challenge this deadly use of the public purse. If the Oil and Gas Authority won’t use common sense, perhaps it’ll listen to the courts.”
Members of Greenpeace protest outside Downing Street against the Cambo oilfield off Shetland in October. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
Earlier this year, John Gummer, chairman of the Climate Change Committee, told MSPs in Holyrood the “justification for any new oil and gas exploration or production has to be very, very, very strong and I cannot say I’ve so far seen any such evidence”.
Last week, one of the most controversial projects, the Cambo oilfield off Shetland, was abandoned by Shell, plunging the future of oil exploration in the area into doubt. Climate campaigners hailed this as the beginning of the end for the North Sea industry. Greenpeace said the damage from Cambo would have been the equivalent of running 18 coal-fired power stations for a year.
“It’s vital that the UK demonstrates leadership and shows how countries can transition away from oil and gas while reskilling workers and creating thousands of well-paid jobs in the process,” said another claimant, Mikaela Loach. “All of this starts with the government pulling the plug on the millions it gives to big polluters.” Environmentalists warn of close ties between oil and gas sector and UK’s North Sea regulator
This view was backed by Jeremy Cox, a former oil refinery worker and the third claimant in the action. “Using public money to subsidise continued extraction and support a declining industry is the exact opposite of what this government should be doing.”
A government spokesperson said the UK did not pay any fossil fuel subsidies: “No other significant oil and gas-producing nation has gone as far as the UK in supporting the sector’s gradual transition to a low-carbon future, as demonstrated by our North Sea transition deal.
“While we are backing the UK’s transition to green energy, there will be ongoing but diminishing need for oil and gas over the coming years, as recognised by the independent Climate Change Committee.”
Western honey bees likely came from ASIA, not Africa as once thought
The origins of the western honey bee — Apis mellifera — likely lay in Asia, not Africa as was previously thought, a study has concluded.
Researchers from Canada's York University settled this long-debated little mystery by sequencing the genomes of 251 honey bees from across the insect's native range.
The western honey bee — used for crop pollination and honey production across most of the globe — has a remarkable ability to survive in different environments.
It can live in tropical rainforests, arid climes and even temperature regions with cold winters, and is native to to Asia, Africa and Europe.
After originating in Western Asia, the team believed that it split into seven different lineages and expanded independently into both Africa and Europe.
The researchers also found that the honey bee genome has a number of 'hot spots' that allowed the insects to adapt to new niches and geographic areas.
In fact, of the more than 12,000 genes in the bee genome, only 145 had repeated signatures of adaptation associated with the formation of the major honey bee lineages seen today.
'Our research suggests that a core-set of genes allowed the honey bee to adapt to a diverse set of environmental conditions across its native range by regulating worker and colony behaviour,' said paper author and biologist Kathleen Dogantzis.
The sequencing efforts also led to the discovery of two new and distinct western honey bee lineages — one from Egypt and the other from Madagascar — bringing the total to seven.
The researchers said that they hope that their study will finally lay to rest the debate as to where the western honey bee originally came from — freeing up future research to explore further how the insects adapted to different climates.
'It’s important to understand how locally adapted subspecies and colony-level selection on worker bees contributes to the fitness and diversity of managed colonies,' explained Ms Dogantzis.
The full findings of the study were published in the journal Science Advances.
Facebook took down a fake Swiss scientist account that was part of an international misinfo campaign
Kim Lyons
THE VERGE
1 day ago
Buried deep within Facebook’s November report on Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior is a tale of international intrigue that seems more like a Netflix drama than an attempted disinformation campaign (although the way Netflix mines social media for ideas these days, maybe stay tuned). On July 24th, a Swiss biologist named Wilson Edwards claimed on Facebook and Twitter that the US was pressuring World Health Organization (WHO) scientists studying the origins of COVID-19.
His claims spread quickly on social media, as such claims are wont to do, and within a week’s time, the Global Times and People’s Daily, two state-run Chinese media outlets, were denouncing Wilson Edwards’ claims as “intimidation” by the US. Wilson Edwards created his Facebook account two days after China refused to accept a plan by the WHO for a second phase study into the origins of the coronavirus.
Have you guessed the plot twist yet? Turns out, according to the Swiss Embassy in Beijing, that there is no such Swiss citizen by the name Wilson Edwards. “If you exist, we would like to meet you! But it is more likely that this is a fake news, and we call on the Chinese press and netizens to take down the posts,” the embassy tweeted from its official account on August 10th.
Facebook investigated and removed the Wilson Edwards account the same day the Swiss embassy tweeted. Ben Nimmo, global IO threat intel lead (excellent title for our drama) at Facebook parent company Meta, writes that the Wilson Edwards account was part of a misinformation campaign that originated in China.
“In essence, this campaign was a hall of mirrors, endlessly reflecting a single fake persona,” Nimmo says. Meta’s investigation found that nearly the entire initial spread of the Wilson Edwards story on Facebook was inauthentic: “the work of a multi-pronged, largely unsuccessful influence operation,” which brought together hundreds of fake accounts as well as some authentic accounts that belonged to employees of “Chinese state infrastructure companies across four continents.”
Only a handful of real people engaged with Wilson Edwards, Meta says, despite the 524 Facebook accounts, 20 Facebook pages, four Facebook groups, and 86 Instagram accounts that the company has removed as part of its investigation. The scammers spent less than $5,000 on Facebook and Instagram ads as part of the campaign and used VPNs to conceal the accounts’ origins.
“This is consistent with what we’ve seen in our research of covert influence operations over the past four years: we haven’t seen successful IO campaigns built on fake engagement tactics,” Nimmo says. “Unlike elaborate fictitious personas that put work into building authentic communities to influence them, the content liked by these crude fake accounts would typically be only seen by their ‘fake friends.’” (And we all know what happens to sham friends.)
The cluster of fake accounts that Meta connected to the Wilson Edwards scheme, along with some people associated with information security firm Silence in China, apparently has made (unsuccessfully, Meta says) other attempts at influence operations that were “typically small-scale and of negligible impact.”
It’s not the most exciting end to our story, but at least Wilson Edwards won’t try to catfish any other international health organizations. Now, if we could just get someone to rein in the tenacious people who keep calling about the car warranty I didn’t know I had...
Green energy is rapidly nearing a turning point. To combat climate change, our leaders need to point to a cleaner, cheaper tomorrow.
Paul Constant is a writer at Civic Ventures and cohost of the "Pitchfork Economics" podcast.
In a recent episode, he spoke with two professors at the Institute of New Economics at Oxford University.
There are many flaws in the way we discuss the problems of, and solutions to, climate change.
For decades, our conversation about climate change has been stunted by mixed signals. Our elected leaders' speeches aim high, with lofty talk about coming together to avert calamity, but their policies fail to address the scale of the crisis. Now, with most parts of the country regularly experiencing extreme weather events, nearly two-thirds of Americans believe the government should do more to combat climate change — but world leaders still failed to take dramatic action to limit the global rise of temperatures at the COP26 climate conference convened by the United Nations this fall.
On the latest episode of Pitchfork Economics, two professors at the Institute of New Economics at Oxford University, Erick Beinhocker and Doyne Farmer, join Nick Hanauer to address the flaws in the way we discuss the problems of, and solutions to, climate change.
"We've had the wrong economic ideas about how climate change is framed," Beinhocker explains. As an example of this flawed thinking, he cites the the Nobel Prize-winning work of Yale economist William Nordhaus, which has warned since the 1990s "that it's going to be very expensive and costly to transition from our fossil fuel economy to a clean energy economy, but those costs have to be weighed against the benefits of avoiding an ecological collapse and potential mass extinction event."
Nordhaus's models have helped frame the conversation about climate change as a negative one. We've been told since the dawn of the modern environmental movement in the 1990s that saving the planet will cost us all a great deal in profits, convenience, and quality of life.
Environmental advocacy groups often explain their policies in terms of what ordinary people will have to give up, both financially and in terms of convenience, in order to save the planet.
New research indicates that this punitive, eat-your-spinach style of thinking may be completely wrong. "We think that converting to renewables, and doing so reasonably quickly within a span of about 20 years, is going to save the world money," Farmer says. "It's going to make energy cheaper for us, as well as evading climate change."
Farmer participates in one of the two major academic groups researching rates of technological advancement, and the indicators point to a fast-growing future for affordable green energy. While green energy keeps getting cheaper, fossil fuels and their attendant costs have remained basically flat for nearly a century and a half. If solar, wind, and hydrogen power continue to stay on their current development path for another decade or two, and if battery storage capacity continues to improve as well, green energy will overtake fossil fuels to become the world's dominant power source.
"We're going to see energy cheaper than it's ever been" in the history of the world, Farmer predicts.
"We still have a long way to go," Beinhocker warns. "Only about 20 percent of global energy is from non-fossil fuels today, and 80 percent from fossil fuels. But the growth [of green energy] has been extraordinary."
Beinhocker says that renewable energy capacity increased by 45 percent in 2020, making it "the only energy source to actually grow during the pandemic, and 90 percent of new power additions in the world now in the electrical sector are from renewables." The global switch to green energy is nearing "a tipping point," he says, "but it's a race against the clock."
This research, though, should mark a significant change in the conversation about climate change. Rather than focusing on punitive policies which make fuel more expensive for the average American, our leaders should instead be investing deeply into research to advance cheap clean technologies, as well as speeding up the construction of green infrastructure, making the adoption of clean fuels more desirable. As we've seen in increased electric vehicle adoption rates around the world, consumers are happy to make the switch to a clean alternative, when they're presented with an affordable, convenient option.
The evidence is clear: it's time for the environmental conversation in America to become an additive, positive one, rather than a negative story of sacrifice and punishment. When it comes to the green economy, it's no longer about saying no to Exxon; it's about saying yes to building a faster track to a cleaner, cheaper future for the whole human race.
Hundreds of academics call for RCMP's 'immediate retreat' from Wet'suwet'en territory
Hundreds of academics have signed an open letter calling for government intervention in the wake of RCMP enforcement of an injunction granted to Coastal GasLink to build a pipeline through unceded Wet’suwet’en territory.
The letter says historically Canada has allowed its laws to be “wielded as a weapon against Indigenous jurisdiction and grasped as a tool for Indigenous genocide.” The letter condemns “aggression” by police forces and “the complete disregard for Indigenous sovereignty and environmental protection it reveals.”
The letter was signed by prominent academics like University of British Columbia climate justice professor Naomi Klein; author of Red Skin, White Masks Glen Coulthard, who also teaches out of UBC; and co-founder and former research director of the Yellowhead Institute Shiri Pasternak.
“Unless an immediate retreat of the RCMP is implemented and the injunction order lifted, the federal government’s tacit approval of these acts will stand as proof not only of the shallow nature of the stated commitment of federal and provincial levels of government to Indigenous rights and reconciliation, but also the hollowness of PM Trudeau’s statement at the recent COP26 in Glasgow that Canada will take a ‘leadership role in the fight against climate change,’” the letter reads.
The letter outlines specific calls to action for governments. It calls on the federal government to study the use of injunctions against First Nations in the context of charter rights and to commit to decarbonization without using natural gas, and urges British Columbia to cancel permits issued to Coastal GasLink.
“The provincial government’s authorization of permits for construction of Coastal GasLink arises from a racist anthropology of discovery and claims to underlying title to lands that have never been the province's to grant,” the letter reads.
“The injunction against the protesters was granted to Coastal GasLink based on these false presumptions, creating a legal house of cards.”
Among other calls to action are a ban on fossil fuel expansion given the climate crisis at hand, a plea for Coastal GasLink to drop charges against the 29 people who were arrested last month, and a call for the RCMP to drop its use of exclusion zones to enforce the injunction.
The open letter comes days after a separate letter was written to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau expressing alarm at megaprojects like Coastal GasLink, the Trans Mountain expansion project and the Site C hydro dam continuing to be built, even after the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) called on Canada to halt all three due to human rights concerns.
The letter to Trudeau was signed by Indigenous rights groups, climate advocacy organizations and a flock of academics just days after a formal submission to the UN’s CERD to update on Canada’s progress, or lack thereof.
That submission says the RCMP, with the aid of the provincial government, committed “human rights violations during the course of the forced eviction of Wet’suwet’en land defenders at Gidimt’en Checkpoint and Coyote Camp.”
A spokesperson for Crown-Indigenous Relations Canada Minister Marc Miller recently told Canada’s National Observer that while Coastal GasLink and RCMP enforcement are under provincial jurisdiction, the federal government is committed to negotiations with the nation.
“The Hereditary Chiefs, the Government of British Columbia and the Government of Canada are discussing how to implement Wet’suwet’en rights and title, as noted in the Memorandum of Understanding signed on May 14, 2020,” said spokesperson Jordan Ames-Sinclair.
“As negotiations proceed on the affirmation and implementation of Wet'suwet'en rights and title, the Wet'suwet'en collective — hereditary chiefs, elected representatives, and community members — will need to work to develop their own governance, with the support of Canada and British Columbia.”
John Woodside, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Canada's National Observer
PERSPECTIVE
For a Global Workers’ Inquest into the COVID-19 Pandemic
The World Socialist Web Site is initiating a Global Workers’ Inquest into the COVID-19 Pandemic.
Drawing upon the research of scientists, the knowledge of public health experts and the real-world experience of working people and students, the Inquest will investigate and document the disastrous response of governments, corporations and the media to the outbreak of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. It will seek to expose the political and economic forces and interests that drove the policies that allowed the uncontrolled transmission of the virus and its development into a catastrophic pandemic that has killed millions worldwide.
The pandemic is an event of historic magnitude. Its impact on the course of the twenty-first century may well prove to be as far-reaching as that of the two world wars on the twentieth century. Therefore, the origins, causes and consequences of the pandemic must be thoroughly investigated and understood. This disaster was neither an “act of God” nor the result of a malevolent conspiracy in a Chinese laboratory. The time has come to decisively refute the lies in which the pandemic narrative has been enshrouded by governments and the corporate media.
This Inquest is necessary to break through the cover-up, falsifications, and misinformation that have been deployed to justify policies responsible for the avoidable deaths of millions since the initial detection of SARS-CoV-2. The Inquest will gather and make available to the public the ample evidence of socially malign and even criminal indifference to human life.
The launching of this Inquest cannot be delayed. As the world enters the third year of the pandemic, the global contagion is not abating. Far from it. The sixth global surge of the pandemic is now well under way, with cases, hospitalizations and deaths once again on the rise as winter approaches in the Northern Hemisphere.
After reaching a trough of 402,548 global average daily new cases on October 17, 2021, the official number of average daily new cases surpassed 500,000 in mid-November, with all of Europe and North America experiencing a significant rise in cases.
While powerful vaccines have been manufactured, only 41 percent of the world population has received two doses of vaccine, including fewer than 7 percent of Africans and 3 percent of people in low-income countries. Just 2.6 percent of the world population has received a necessary third dose of vaccine. Scientists have repeatedly warned that continued mass infection amid the slow rollout of vaccines creates evolutionary pressures that threaten to produce a vaccine-resistant variant.
The official global death toll now stands above five million people, which is known to be a vast undercount. The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington estimates that the most likely number of deaths from COVID-19 globally is 12.1 million people, with an average of nearly 13,300 people now dying each day worldwide. The long-term societal impacts, which could include hundreds of millions of people suffering from Long COVID, are not yet fully known.
The number of excess deaths during the pandemic—those from all causes above and beyond what would be expected during normal conditions—is estimated by the Economist to be more than 17 million. A recent study published in the BMJ (formerly British Medical Journal ) found that life expectancy dropped significantly in 2020 in countries that allowed the virus to spread, in particular Russia (2.32 years) and the US (2 years).
The pandemic was foreseen
The Inquest will debunk the myth that the pandemic was an unforeseeable and unstoppable disaster. In the decades prior to the initial outbreak of SARS-CoV-2 in Wuhan, China—which experts have overwhelmingly attributed to animal-to-human zoonotic transmission, most likely from a bat at a wet market—there was a mass of scientific literature, books and even films that anticipated such a pandemic.
The 2002–2004 SARS outbreak, the 2003 H5N1 “bird flu” epidemic, the 2009 “swine flu” pandemic, the 2012 MERS outbreak and the 2013–2016 Ebola virus epidemic prompted scientists throughout the world to raise the alarm that a pandemic was imminent.
In July 2005, epidemiologist Dr. Michael Osterholm wrote a detailed essay in the journal Foreign Affairs titled, “Preparing for the Next Pandemic.” In all essentials, this paper outlined the worst-case scenario that in fact took place globally starting in January 2020.
Warning that a coming pandemic “cannot be avoided,” Dr. Osterholm called for each country to develop “a detailed operational blueprint for how to get a population through one to three years of a pandemic,” as well as an “initiative to provide vaccine for the entire world.” He also warned that if the next pandemic began that night, “Virtually every piece of medical equipment or protective gear would be in short supply within days of the recognition of a pandemic,” while noting that global supply chains would be severely disrupted. He concludes the essay by stating, “This is a critical turning point in history. Time is running out to prepare for the next pandemic. We must act now with decisiveness and purpose.”
Bodies of deceased COVID-19 patients outside Maimonides hospital in Brooklyn during the March 2020 surge in New York City. The image was shared with the press by a nurse at the hospital.
Dozens of similar articles, essays and research papers written over the next 14 years endorsed and added to Dr. Osterholm’s prognosis. But these warnings were ignored by almost all governments, and society was left totally unprepared for such an event. The financial resources necessary to counteract the danger were not provided. Instead, trillions of dollars were poured into the financial markets and ever-ballooning military budgets. The unbridled destruction of critical ecosystems left society increasingly vulnerable to zoonotic transmission. Stockpiles of personal protective equipment were not maintained. Research into mRNA vaccines and other technologies was cut off when deemed unprofitable. Hospital systems were left understaffed and underresourced.
The global transmission of SARS-CoV-2 could have been stopped in early 2020
The Inquest will critically investigate and refute the untenable claim that once SARS-CoV-2 began to spread, there was little that could be done to stop it. This assertion is clearly contradicted by the experience in China, a society of 1.4 billion people, where emergency measures were taken that rapidly eliminated the virus. These included the use of masking, social distancing, testing, contact tracing, the closure of nonessential workplaces and the construction of isolation centers and health care facilities.
By March 14, 2020, China had brought daily new cases down to only 25, one month after they reached a peak of 4,602 on February 14. The virus was soon eliminated, with periodic minor outbreaks in which daily new cases only once surpassed 200. To date, there have only been 4,636 deaths from COVID-19 in China, with all but four taking place before April 17, 2020. Similar measures were implemented in New Zealand, Vietnam, Taiwan and other countries in the Asia-Pacific region with great success.
The refutation of the assertion that the virus could not be stopped is not a matter of purely historical interest. Today, alongside the global deployment of vaccines, it is still possible and vital to implement policies directed toward the elimination and eradication of COVID-19.
Elimination vs. “herd immunity”
The Inquest will confront the following critical question: Why were the measures that proved successful in China, New Zealand and other Asia-Pacific countries not implemented in the United States, Brazil, Germany, India and throughout the world? What economic, political, and social interests dictated an entirely different response? The ancient question of criminal law— cui bono? i.e., who benefits?—must be raised in the context of the pandemic.
The unavoidable answer, as the Inquest will demonstrate, is that a conscious decision was made to prioritize the performance of financial markets and corporate profits over saving human lives. The facts speak for themselves. While millions of workers died of COVID-19, the wealth of corporate CEOs and major shareholders vastly increased. In the first 19 months of the pandemic, US billionaires alone increased their wealth by $2.1 trillion, or 70 percent. A disease that ravaged the globe vastly enriched the pandemic profiteers.
Wealthy US senators, privy to an intelligence briefing on SARS-CoV-2 in January 2020, dumped millions of dollars’ worth of stock while staying silent on the dangers of the virus. On March 19, 2020, US President Donald Trump secretly told journalist Bob Woodward that he deliberately misled the public in order to prevent a run on the markets, saying, “I wanted to always play it down. I still like playing it down, because I don’t want to create a panic.” Numerous such incidents took place in countries throughout the world.
In opposition to the strategy of elimination or “Zero COVID,” governments implemented the socially criminal policy of “herd immunity”—i.e., letting the virus rip through society until the majority of the population is infected. First implemented in Sweden, this policy was enthusiastically touted by New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, promoted by the Trump administration and his co-thinkers globally, and consciously articulated in the Great Barrington Declaration. The guiding anti-elimination mantra of “herd immunity,” coined by Friedman, is that “the cure cannot be worse than the disease”—i.e., public health must be subordinated to corporate profits.
To justify the “herd immunity” policy, basic scientific truths about COVID-19 were suppressed and falsified. Official institutions, including the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, denied the airborne character of the virus for over one year. After finally admitting that aerosols are the dominant mode of transmission, they have made no effort to educate the public, mandate masks or systematically improve ventilation in public spaces, including schools.
Politicians of every stripe, as well as the pro-capitalist labor unions, falsified the effects of COVID-19 on children and the role that schools play in viral transmission. In the United States, the president of the American Federation of Teachers led the criminally reckless campaign, on behalf of the Biden administration, to drive children back into the schools. While feigning concern for the mental health of students, their underlying motive has always been to send parents back to work to ensure the continued flow of profits to corporations.
Encountering widespread resistance, the elites have responded with repressive measures. In Britain, Lisa Diaz—a parent who is leading a popular movement against the unsafe reopening of schools—was threatened with fines and maligned in the press. David O’Sullivan—a London bus driver who warned his co-workers of the danger posed by COVID-19—was fired in retaliation.
In the process of discrediting public health policies, “herd immunity” advocates whipped up right-wing fanatics, rejected lockdowns and pursued a systematic campaign of misinformation centered on opposing masks and vaccines, generating a dangerous level of public confusion.
In this September 2020 photo, then-President Donald Trump watches as White House coronavirus adviser Dr. Scott Atlas speaks during a news conference on the pandemic (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
At the same time, lies were concocted about the origins of SARS-CoV-2, claiming that the virus was engineered in a lab in Wuhan. This conspiracy theory was fabricated by the far right and later picked up by the establishment media, in particular the Washington Post and New York Times. Not only did this distract from the real causes of the pandemic, but it was used to advance a militaristic geopolitical agenda directed against China.
With the rollout of vaccines in the wealthiest countries in 2021, an offshoot of “herd immunity” developed based on the false claims that vaccines and masks alone could bring an end to the pandemic. This found its sharpest expression in the US under the Biden administration, which on May 13, 2021, advised vaccinated people to stop wearing masks and prematurely proclaimed independence from the pandemic on July 4, 2021. Since that date, more than 170,000 Americans have died from COVID-19.
The WSWS has noted that three strategies towards the pandemic have emerged: “herd immunity,” vaccinations with limited mitigation measures and the global elimination of SARS-CoV-2. The first two strategies are based on the subordination of public health to private profits, while only the last represents a path forward towards ending the pandemic and saving lives.
The same financial interests responsible for the disastrous “herd immunity” policies have exerted enormous pressure on countries throughout the Asia-Pacific to abandon the elimination strategy and allow mass infections to take place. The government of New Zealand, which had successfully suppressed the virus for nearly 18 months, finally succumbed to international pressure. In October it abandoned the Zero COVID policy developed by scientists. The result of this retreat has been a dramatic increase in COVID infections. Pressure is also being exerted on China to retreat from its commitment to COVID elimination.
These global machinations, aimed at forcing countries to accept mass infection in the interest of corporate profits, will also be investigated by the Inquest.
The scope and aims of the Global Workers’ Inquest into the COVID-19 Pandemic
One cannot speak of the deaths of millions of people without posing the question of criminal culpability. While Donald Trump overtly lied to the public and Boris Johnson blurted out, “Let the bodies pile high in their thousands!” the actions of Joe Biden, Justin Trudeau, Angela Merkel, Emmanuel Macron and dozens of other world leaders resulted in comparable levels of needless suffering and death. Narendra Modi vowed to “save” the Indian people “from lockdown,” not the virus, in April 2021, as the country was ravaged by the Delta variant. As a result, authoritative studies show that COVID-19 has killed at least 3 million and more likely 5 million Indians.
Sections of the US political establishment and media, including the Washington Post and the New York Times, have called for a “9/11-style commission” to investigate the pandemic. Such an “investigation” would only deepen the cover-up that has taken place. Not a single government will tolerate any serious investigation because they themselves are implicated in this massive social crime.
The Global Workers’ Inquest into the COVID-19 Pandemic does not seek nor require the sanction of governments. The World Socialist Web Site is well equipped to initiate the Inquest. It recognized from the earliest public reports of SARS-CoV-2 the danger of a global pandemic. Since January 24, 2020, when it first reported on the initial coronavirus outbreak, the WSWS has posted more than 4,000 articles on this subject. It has demanded since early 2020 the implementation of a globally coordinated plan to stop the pandemic. It has denounced government policies responsible for mass death.
In a statement published on February 28, 2020, the WSWS stressed the need for global action to stop the pandemic, writing:
The response to the coronavirus cannot be coordinated on a nation-by-nation level. The virus does not respect borders or visa and immigration restrictions. The global networks of transportation and economic integration have turned the virus into a global problem.
The solution must be global. Scientists from all over the world must be allowed to share their research and technology, unencumbered by the “national interests” and geopolitical conflicts that serve only to delay the development of effective countermeasures to contain, cure and ultimately eradicate the coronavirus.
On March 6, 2020, the WSWS stated: “The indifference of the Trump administration to the health of the population is not better, and perhaps worse, than the attitude of the pharaohs of ancient Egypt to the slaves. The media has spent far more time bemoaning the fall in share values on Wall Street than the loss of human life.”
Opposing these policies, the WSWS posted a statement on March 17, 2020, which declared: “The essential principle that must guide the response to the crisis is that the needs of working people must take absolute and unconditional priority over all considerations of corporate profit and private wealth.”
The WSWS has not only reported on the impact of the pandemic. It has sought to impart to workers and young people a scientific understanding of the pandemic and what must be done to stop it. Toward this end, the WSWS cosponsored in conjunction with the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees two global webinars, on August 22 and October 24, 2021, featuring leading scientists who have fought for a policy of global elimination.
Sri Lankan health workers shout slogans demanding better pay and personal protective equipment during a strike action in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Friday, Oct. 8, 2021. (AP Photo/Eranga Jayawardena)
The October 24 webinar proposed the following as the basis for the fight to end the pandemic:
The target of SARS-CoV-2—the virus that causes COVID-19—is not individuals, but entire societies. The virus’ mode of transmission is directed toward achieving mass infection. SARS-CoV-2 has evolved biologically to strike billions, and, in so doing, kill millions.
Therefore, the only effective strategy is one based on a globally coordinated campaign aimed at the elimination of the virus on every continent, in every region and in every country. There is no effective national solution to this pandemic. Humanity—people of all races, ethnicities and nationalities—must confront and overcome this challenge through a vast collective and truly selfless global effort.
The policies pursued by virtually all governments since the outbreak of the pandemic must be repudiated. The subordination of that which should be the unquestioned priority of social policy—the protection of human life—to the interests of corporate profit and private wealth accumulation cannot be allowed to continue.
The initiative to bring about a decisive turn to a strategy directed toward global elimination must come from a socially conscious movement of millions of people.
This global movement must draw upon scientific research. The persecution of scientists—many of whom labor under threats to their livelihoods and even their lives—must be ended. The global elimination of the virus requires the closest working alliance between the working class—the great mass of society—and the scientific community.
Building upon these principles and the work of the last two years, the World Socialist Web Site will conduct the Inquest on a global scale. It will interview and gather information from scientists and public health specialists from all over the world. The Inquest will examine a wide range of critical issues relating to the outbreak, spread and management of the pandemic in all parts of the world.
It will reach out to workers and students for real-life information to document the impact of the pandemic on the lives of ordinary people.
The WSWS—which is the publication of the International Committee of the Fourth International and its affiliated Socialist Equality Parties—will provide organizational scaffolding and impulse for the Inquest. But this immense project requires the active collaboration of specialists in many fields active in the fight against the pandemic.
In seeking to develop this collaboration in the practical work of the Inquest, the WSWS does not require agreement of all participants with the socialist program that it advocates. There will be differences among those involved in the Inquest on the best forms of political, social and economic organization of future society. But this collaboration will require among its participants an unyielding commitment to scientific truth, the elimination and eradication of COVID-19, and the safeguarding of life, culture and the future of humanity.
Low wages, barriers to entry behind labour shortage in key trucking industry
Rumbling over the blacktop that unfurls across western Montana, Jason Junk wonders how much longer he’ll remain in a career that’s sustained him for 29 years.
“Nobody wants to do this anymore, because we don’t make enough money,” the long-haul truck driver from Edmonton says.
“It’s not worth it anymore.”
Stagnant wages, grinding work conditions and a perceived lack of public appreciation all factor into the decision, says Junk, 49.
An independent owner-operator, he shifted to a less arduous schedule under contract with a new company last month, but many drivers have decided to exit the industry altogether since the COVID-19 pandemic struck.
Trucking is an industry in crisis. While demand for drivers soared during the pandemic amid a surge in online sales, the number of people entering the industry has dropped due to stagnant wages, shifting labour patterns and prohibitive insurance policies that make it difficult for new drivers to earn a living.
As of October, roughly 332,000 truck drivers plied Canada’s highways in October, roughly in line with pre-pandemic levels. Still, about 18,000 vacancies plagued the sector over the last few months as young drivers, women and retirement-age workers left, according to Trucking HR Canada. Some 55,000 job vacancies are projected for 2023.
Despite the scarcity of drivers, wages remain stubbornly low, thanks to the sector’s razor-tight profit margins, said Stephen Laskowski, president of the Canadian Trucking Alliance.
“It’s a hyper-competitive industry,” he said. “The wages are a reflection of the cost of services of the trucking industry itself.”
The price of inputs ranging from increasingly digitized vehicle components to repair services and fuel continues to rise amid strained supply lines and mounting inflation.
Training poses another barrier to entry, with courses costing between $6,000 and $12,000 for two-to-three month programs. Some truckers’ salaries sit close to $44,850, based on a median wage of $23 per hour, according to the federal job bank — though experienced truckers can earn more than double that annual income, drivers say.
Pawan Kaur, who manages the Toronto Truck Driving School, says the number of monthly students has increased by a handful to roughly 25 over the last year. But she said that recent graduates can only find a job with less reputable firms who pay low wages and demand longer stints away from home.
“The problem we are facing is companies are looking for experienced drivers. No one wants to hire new, fresh drivers,“ she said, noting that just half of the 103.5 hours of training required in Ontario is behind the wheel.
On paper, earning a heavy-trailer licence entitles the holder to steer a big rig. “But that doesn’t mean you’re actually ready to drive a 53-foot trailer down the highway,” said Angela Splinter, chief executive of Trucking HR Canada.
Insurance premiums reflect that stance. A key part of the industry’s labour problem, they are either off limits to fledgling drivers or prohibitively high.
“You can’t just have a pulse anymore and you give them keys to $175,000 to $200,000 worth of equipment and send them on the road — plus another 100 grand in freight that’s in that trailer,“ said Lisa Garofalo, vice-president of the trucking division at Baird MacGregor Insurance Brokers.
The result is an insurance catch-22: You need experience to drive a truck, but you can’t drive a truck without experience — often at least two years’ worth.
“It’s dire, it’s a real problem right now,” Garofalo said.
One way out of the conundrum is through very large fleets, which have insurer-approved training programs for newcomers. But for smaller fleets, insurance companies screen for rookie drivers, effectively filtering them out.
For some, the lack of respectshown to workers who are key players in an economy even more reliant upon them during the pandemic was the final straw.
“When they closed everything down, I’d go two or three weeks and I wouldn’t take a meal outside the truck,” recalls Junk. “We go to customers to unload or reload, and we’re not allowed to use their washroom facilities.”
Drivers can face gruelling hours and up to 14 days straight on the road, spending some nights in the sleeper-cab or along the roadside. Many are paid by the mile, which means that hours stuck in traffic or waiting for a delayed shipment are a writeoff.
Just as some young people have turned away from low-wage retail jobs, so have they looked beyond the highway for more appealing work. More than 40 per cent of the trucking workforce is over 55, according to Trucking HR Canada.
The industry has redoubled its efforts to lure drivers back into seats.
A few companies are changing to a per-hour compensation model, rather than per-mile, to give employees more wage stability. The Canadian Trucking Alliance is rolling out a social media campaign to showcase the changing face of the industry to young Canadians.
Meanwhile, a federal youth employment subsidy can help cover the cost of training. And Ottawa’s Temporary Foreign Worker Program, which brings in roughly 1,500 drivers a year, can be better exploited, stakeholders say.
But none of these measures can fill the void. Experts say the occupation should be regulated as a skilled trade, which would open more pathways to government funding, immigration and training.
The Canadian Trucking Alliance also says federal and provincial governments need to crack down on fly-by-night fleets that spurn regulations, including for proper compensation and caps on daily driving hours.
Meanwhile, the role of truckers in the efforts to bring supplies to flood-ravaged areas of southern British Columbia highlights their crucial importance — and the urgency of boosting their numbers — says Barry Prentice, professor of supply chain management at the University of Manitoba’s Asper School of Business.
“That is a rare situation. But it speaks to the pressing need that people have at this point to move freight,” he said, citing an old chestnut: “If you bought it, a truck brought it.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 3, 2021.
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